The Partnership Begins

The Kodiak’s bumpy landing on the muddy airstrip. The sea of faces surrounding us as we climbed out of the airplane. Vigorous handshakes. Huge grins. People who knew our names because they’d been praying for us to come join them. A church whose heart beats with God’s heart for the world. It’s hard to encapsulate the events and emotions of our trip into Mouk in just a few words and pictures, but here goes:

May 18

We flew from Hoskins to the Mouk airstrip along with 6 church leaders from the tribe where we did bush orientation. Due to the timing of when the plane was in the area, our visit into Mouk overlapped with some meetings between church leaders from 3 different tribes. We were warmly welcomed with food, songs, and the chance to shake the hands of all 350+ people who were there (some were Mouk church leaders from other villages).

Even though we’d never met 99% of these people, everyone knew our names because they’d heard we might come and join their team of Mouk missionaries (believers sent out by the Mouk churches to another people group). Within minutes of our arrival, we found ourselves in conversations about more tribes who still have no access to the Gospel. “The bananas are ripe,” the Mouk kept saying, “but the workers to harvest them are few.” (Luke 10:2)

May 19

Church leaders from 3 tribes meeting

We sat in on the meetings between the church leaders from the 3 different tribes. They talked a lot about the different needs of their churches, how to help each other grow, and the need for unity in the Body of Christ. How can we work together? How do we help churches that are struggling? How do we build fellowship and unity between us? It was a great opportunity for us to see how relationships are forged between church leaders from different people groups, who live in different areas and speak different languages.

May 20

Two New Tribes leaders met with the Mouk church leaders, our potential future Mouk coworkers, and the church leaders from the tribe where we did bush orientation. The church leaders from our bush orientation shared about what things they taught us, what topics we discussed with them, and how they helped prepare us for partnering with the Mouk church. All the different parties represented in the meeting agreed that God wanted us (Josiah and Rachel) to join the Mouk in their outreach to another tribe, so then we were invited to join the meeting.

Meeting with the Mouk

The Mouk church leaders said they were all excited to have us join the Mouk outreach, and they want us to come learn the Mouk language and culture so that we can have a strong relationship with the Mouk church and be sent out by them to join their outreach. They had already decided what village they would like us to locate in (it was the village we were in for these meetings — the one with the airstrip), and they wanted to know how soon we could move in. They offered to help us build a house to live in while we learn the Mouk language and culture.

Josiah shared the story of how God had worked in our hearts and directed us to pursue this partnership with them. We’ll share that story in our next blog post. Then, since we were all agreed that we (Josiah and Rachel) should join the Mouk in their outreach to another tribe, we all lined up and shook hands to show we were “wan bel” (unified). You should’ve seen the grins on everyone’s faces. 🙂

May 21

Everyone gathered for a church service to sing, pray, and hear God’s Word taught. Two of the visiting church leaders from where we did bush orientation taught on two different passages of Scripture. Afterwards, we (Josiah and Rachel) spent a while talking with our future Mouk coworkers about how the outreach started and some of the challenges they’re facing.

May 22

We all gathered for another church service, and this time, two visiting church leaders from another tribe shared from God’s Word. Then, we all had a big feast of cooked roots (taro, kaukau, etc.), rice, and pig meat. Having a feast like this at the end of a visit is a cultural way of showing we are all unified and parting ways on good terms.

After the feast, the Mouk church leaders talked with Josiah about where we should build a house in that village, and where to get the wood for the house.

Marking out the house

The Mouk deacons had a meeting and decided what spot of ground they wanted us to build on, and then we went over and staked out the house measurements (20’x32′). Then we discussed what size of timber we would need for the house frame, and they encouraged us to get the wood for the walls and floor from a place in town, since they thought it would be harder and more expensive to get a portable sawmill to cut that wood and it would take 3 months before the wood would be dry enough to use.

The Mouk offered to cut the wood we need for the frame of the house, and to help us make arrangements for bringing some of our housebuilding supplies in by boat and dump truck. We discussed when we’d be able to return to start housebuilding, and settled on the date July 5th, since that worked best with their plans and with the New Tribes Aviation flight schedule.

May 23

After packing up our backpacks at daybreak, we hiked for 20 minutes to get to the dump truck that was going to drive us (the two of us, all the visiting church leaders, and 2 New Tribes leaders) down to the coast. Two and a half hours of bumpy, muddy logging roads later, we arrived at the coast and then loaded our things into a dinghy. What was supposed to be a 2 1/2 hour boat ride turned into 5 hours of slowly puttering along. 🙂 At sunset, we arrived at a small town where a truck was waiting to drive us back to Hoskins. So, after twelve hours of travel, we arrived back home, exhausted and covered with salt, sand, and sweat, but excited by how God is working. 🙂